Rollercoaster

Every day is a rollercoaster of emotions. My mood changes by the hour.

Stuff that bums me out:

Waking up and wishing I were with my favorite person
Walking through 1/4 mile of mud twice a day
The dead cat near Beth's house
Cramming onto buses
Speaking my classroom Azeri and not being understood
All the damn Masazir construction that screws up my daily, and expensive, commute to Sumgayit

Stuff that makes it worthwhile:

Unhurried, sunlit mornings in the kitchen with my mother, an Azerbaijani language teacher
Persimmon jam
Freshly baked bread
Kittens
My awesome and beautiful host sister
My adorable host cousins
Moments of genuine Azeri hospitality
Azeri teachers of English who are excited to speak English with me
The slow but perceptible improvement in my Azeri language skills
My host relatives' excitement and enjoyment of my Azeri cultural learning

Yesterday was a typical rollercoaster day. I managed to have my first moment of mutual comprehension with my host mother's mother - yay! I looked at crafty blogs describing apple cider and Halloween treats and got really homesick - boo! I did a decent impromptu American-style English lesson to 8th grade students - yay! I walked home through the mud in near dark - boo! My host mother and relatives gather together to help me practice for my language assessment interview - yay!

I keep on keepin' on.

Shira and I in Gobustan.

Life is good

I don't have much time to write but here's a quick update - I will be a teacher trainer at a teacher's college. Yay! Next month I'll find out which city I will be posted in. My practicum is at a local university. It's been interesting to observe a different method of instruction than I have practiced and was taught in. The week after next I'll actually get to teach. My goal is to model interactive and student-centered instruction. Also I'd like to give the university lecturers some teaching materials and methods that don't require intensive preparation. All of the lecturers are female and in Azerbaijan females are expected to cook and clean in addition to all of their job duties. Not much different than the U.S., really.

This weekend I will travel to Ujar to visit a real, live PC volunteer. From what I've been told, Ujar is similar to Fresno. Hot, flat, and uninteresting. (Sorry Fresno!)

I am so gonna get fat

Quick update - my host family is awesome and they feed me really well. Almost too well. Homemade everything: grape leaf dolmas, cabbage leaf dolmas, garlic yogurt sauce, chicken-fresh eggs, preserved cherries in cherry syrup, sweet tea, goat cheese, the list goes on.

My left-handedness is a source of curiosity and amusement. I am fortunate to have a Western toilet at home which is a good transition for me. My Azerbaijani is coming along, slowly but surely. I keep a list of small victories - yesterday it was successfully hailing our bus from the busy highway. I got cheers and high-fives from my clustermates. Yay!

Life is pretty good.

More difficult than I thought

I tried to call my favorite person and broke down crying when I listened to the voicemail message. Just hearing his voice made me question my decision to be here. Which is interesting because until that moment I was eager for this adventure, the ups and the downs. I guess that was my first hurdle. I did some breathing exercises and came back to center. I know that this is exactly what I should be doing and now I've been reminded that it's not easy.

Learning Azeri is also not easy though I can see small victories. Yesterday we had a tutorial on the alphabet and numbers. I'm pretty good at the numbers but definitely need assistance with pronunciation of the alifba. Our group tried to sing the alphabet song but it didn't really work because the Azeri alphabet has fewer letters; thus the song ended early. It was a cute moment.

On Monday I'll meet and begin living with my Pre-Service Training (PST) host family. I will be their guest and daughter/sister for 10 weeks. I hope to get a lot of speaking practice with them. I've never lived with a host family and am nervously excited.

During training we'll get intense sessions in language, culture, hopefully some Azerbaijani history, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Us TEFL folks aren't expected to attain as high a level of language mastery as the Community and Economic Development (CED) and Youth Development (YD) folks because we will do more practical activities such as co-teaching and sample teaching. It will be interesting to be back in a classroom and I look forward to it.

Also during training we'll learn to be community development workers. I haven't done or learned anything about community development work - assessing the needs of a community and working with the community to meet those needs based on community strengths  - and look forward to that too.

I look forward to all of this, even the unwanted attention and occasional harassment (how will I react?), even though my heart is elsewhere. Sigh. I'll get through this and I think there's a good chance I'll be an awesome volunteer. Fingers crossed!

In Azerbaijan!

After 24+ hours of travel, I am in Azerbaijan. I haven't seen much of the country yet because we're in a hotel for Orientation Week but what I've seen so far is nice. The weather is warm and a little muggy so I'm sure I seemed ridiculous carrying my giant winter coat through the airport. This morning we'll find out who our clustermates are. We'll break up into clusters of 5 or 6 for our 10 weeks of intense training. Training starts on Monday. I'm excited about learning to be a community development worker. And I'm excited to meet my host family. In all, I'm just excited!